The thing about Winston Churchill is that he (almost instantly) became whatever Britain needed, at any time he was an adult.

After a very difficult childhood, Mr. Churchill went to (the then-incredibly-cruel) Sandhurst military college and went on to fight in the Boer War and while in what is now called South Africa, he took the necessary education to become a lawyer.

During WWI he served as the First Lord of the Admiralty and suffered brutal defeats on account of his overly-cautious naval commanders who couldn't comprehend his 20th century tactics as they had been trained for naval combat in the previous century. (Had they used his Blitzkrieg-style tactics in the Straits of Dardanelles they would've won convincingly and with few casualties) consequently, he resigned and became a hugely successful British Army commander who showed great courage and led his troops with alacrity, and was accorded great respect.

Between WWI and WWII he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and switched to another political party.

During WWII Churchill again, became whatever it was that Britain needed.

As Britain was lacking combat-experienced and extremely brave politicians, Winston Churchill decided that role needed to be filled, and he filled it, and then some.

With the greatest respect to every combat soldier of WWII and to the civilians who suffered bombardment in all the affected countries, it would've been a far different world, without Winston Churchill -- who proved to be more than a match for Hitler and his gang of criminals.

Without Winston Churchill, our side would've lost.

It was commonly said by people of all walks of life in those days that Winston S. Churchill, by sheer force of will, demonstrated the leadership and the qualities required for victory.

And one of his tactics, was to kiss-up to the Americans and make a show of a 'special relationship' in order to get them on-side during WWII. That was just Winston being Winston. He knew that only by adding American firepower, the war would end a few months before the Nazis could win. (Yes, it was 'that close') He told the Americans what they wanted to hear, in hopes it would persuade them to enter the war before it was too late.

There will never be another like him. Not even close.

Therefore, any suggestion that political leaders of our time are in any way similar to Winston Churchill, is laughable.

There are those who claim that Churchill was a 'racist' or a 'bigot'. If so, then so was every other Westerner of his time. Not that such attitudes are correct, far from it. But there was simply no understanding of the negatives relating to racism, in the first half of the 20th century.

On the contrary, Winston Churchill used his legal credentials to assist people of colour in what is now called South Africa, to get them justice -- and hundreds of times, did so at no cost to those people, as they simply had no money at all. Some had never seen printed money, or coin currencies in their entire lives.

Churchill was also very impressed with Mohandas K. Gandhi, and they wrote long and heartfelt letters to each other, spanning many years, in the interests of preventing bloodshed in India.

Churchill took the unprecedented step of inviting and warmly receiving his friend, M.K. Gandhi to Westminster and took great pains to ensure Mohandas' security during the visit. (Many racist Britons were infuriated with that particular move, as they had planned to assassinate the Mahatma during his visit) Winston himself drove Gandhi to the airport, one day earlier than had been planned, in the interests of saving Gandhi's life.

That's not the actions of a racist bigot.

Churchill's reputation among the 'whitest' Britons never recovered, and his career suffered terribly as a result of that invite and warm welcome to London of M.K. Gandhi.

It's so easy to criticize Winston S. Churchill from our lofty and enlightened (really? Are we 'that' enlightened?) 21-century reality.

But which of us would've been as courageous as Mr. Churchill in his time? And he paid dearly for it for the rest of his political career.

For which, he is now criticized by some of the same groups he risked his life (many times over) to empower.

A good, but long read: The Last Lion (trilogy) by William Manchester

https://www.amazon.ca/Last-Lion-Box-Set-Churchill/dp/0316227781

I'm not saying that Churchill was perfect, far from it (he would've been the first to admit that he was far from perfect) but after reading the entire trilogy, would Mr. Churchill's critics please inform us how much better people, and how more enlightened they are, as compared to Sir Winston S. Churchill?

+++1000
Indeed John.
Without Churchill, The World we have grown to believe in - would not exist.
There will never be another like him.
Not even close.
Sir Winston Churchill proved more than a match to The Fuehrer from Germany.
The Duke of Wellington proven more than a match to The Corporal from Corsica.
Sir Francis Drake set the Little Island on course when The Spanish Armada went to the bottom.
The Anglosphere exists because of them.
Who knows the course of history...
History can only be written, never changed.
One Language made that history possible...
Always enjoy your wonderful comments.
Regards
JS

I am an Indian and for me Churchill is a greater war criminal than Hitler. Churchill planned and killed about 20 to 40 million Indians in the great bengal famine of 1943. That is definitely more than war related deaths in any other country during WWII.

Churchill's strong leadership destroyed the Nazi's and made the world a safer place. He could never foresee the future clash of the west and the east on trade labour challenges, but his warning about soviet communism suggest he preferred free markets. Trump is a leader who will strengthen America (and thus the West) by digging us out from liberal socialist programs designed to buy votes at the expense of free markets. When people knock trump (who is just the middle class messenger) they insult the middle class strength of this country.

Churchill, whose mother was from the U.S, happily accepted honorary US citizenship. It is entirely appropriate for a US president to display a bust of this great man.
The truth about Churchill is that he had a huge appetite for official work. The result is that no matter what subject we might examine, sooner of later we find some decision of Churchill's played an important role. It is easy to blame Churchill for things which were not his fault but where some grandiloquent statement of his appears to have played a decisive role. An example is the wholly false accusation that Churchill caused the famine in Bengal during the war.
With hindsight, we realize that a statesman should take risks and act decisively. Churchill's genius was to learn from his mistakes. He had opposed Indian independence, but in opposition, went out of his way to placate Nehru.
Trump is still an unknown quantity. But, if he puts American interests first and rejects military adventurism his Presidency will reduce rather than exacerbate Global instability.
Buruma courageously opposed the Iraq war and deserves credit for that. 'Human Rights' or 'the Liberal World Order' does not justify meddling in foreign countries or sponsoring 'regime change'.

When Obama delivered a speech in London two months before the Brexit vote, pleading with the voters to remain in the EU, Boris Johnson criticised him for meddling and mentioned his removal of Churchill's bust from the Oval Office. He suggested the move was Obama's "hatred of Britian, and referred to his Kenyan roots. There were even rumours that Obama returned the bust to the British Embassy. But Obama didn't respond to Johnson's offensive and insensitive comments. Instead he spoke about how much he admired Churchill, so much as that he took the bust to his private residence, where he saw it every day.
The author points out that the "cult of Churchill has not been an altogether beneficial one for the United States," even though it was Churchill who coined the term "special relationship." It explains why "too many US presidents fancy themselves Churchill’s true heirs," who together with their British counterparts - regardless of partisan ideology - have sought to highlight the fundamental importance of this special relationship and the depth of friendship between the American people and the British people - two English-speaking democracies that have shared a common history, a common language and a common literature.
The author says George W. Bush had "a copy of Churchill’s bust, lent to him by Tony Blair, in the Oval Office," and he "liked to portray himself as a 'war president,' a 'decider,' and a 'great leader,' like Churchill." But Bush "had a taste for battle dress. And he got his country into a very foolish war." Trump is no doubt "the least appropriate figure to cast himself in Churchill’s mold," because "he is hostile to most of the things that Churchill stood for" - to fight against tyranny and dictatorship and for liberty and freedom.
Trump's “America first” agenda - "standing aloof from Western allies, is exactly the kind of attitude against which Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt struggled in order to successfully resist Hitler’s Third Reich." But FDR was initially less enthused, for he saw the wartime alliance between the US and the Britain in a much more cold-hearted and calculating light, and the same would later be true of his successors - Harry S Truman and Dwight David Eisenhower.
However in 1941 FDR and Churchill met aboard the U.S.S. Augusta in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to discuss their respective plans for World War II and to outline a postwar international system. The Atlantic Charter they drafted set out their ideals for a postwar world, that included "everything Trump seems to be against: lower trade barriers, economic cooperation, and the advancement of social welfare."
The author points out that" Churchill was also a proponent of European unification, even if he remained ambivalent about Britain’s role in the future union." Churchill deemed the safety of the world require a "new unity in Europe", free of a "Soviet sphere", saying it was "certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up." Farage has during the Brexit campaign abused Churchill's "wartime rhetoric about Britain’s finest hour in defending freedom against tyranny, /which/ was aimed at dismantling the very project Churchill favored" - the United States of Europe, as envisioned in his 1946 speech in Zurich.
Basically the author says "the rhetoric of Trump and his supporters, and of the Brexiteers," is inconsistent with the "spirit of the Atlantic Charter." Churchill would turn in his grave upon hearing "talk of sinister international bankers and other “citizens of nowhere” (British Prime Minister Theresa May’s phrase) undermining, in league with rootless liberal elites, “ordinary,” “real,” and “decent” people (Farage) smacks of the anti-Semitic propaganda that swirled around Europe in the 1930s." No doubt Churchill’s "response to the flirtations of Trump and the European far right with Vladimir Putin’s Russia can easily be imagined." Despite all the flaws and mistakes, the author sees Churchill as "the right man in 1940 to raise British morale, when morale was about the only thing the British had going for them." Looking at Farage and Trump, who spew lies, instil fear and incite violence in order to gain political power, they are nowhere near Churchill's broad-mindedness and sophistication.

Ian,
Despite yours and other Elites' hopes, UK will be fine and liberated by Brexit. Notwithstanding, you will still be a "Citezen of Nowhere", despite your British mother. A word of advice, the liberal world order is coming to end...best to prepare for future instead of continuing to reject the facts that Elites have over reached and are now paying the price.

"LOL, and you actually think the 1%, which are the real elites even care..."...in the past, definitely, not...currently, they're slowing noticing...in the future, once it hits them where it hurts, their pocket, they will.

"But you are confusing Elites with education...Ian is part of Academia so although not a mover or shaker on Wall Street, but still part of establishment hence Elite.
" you voted for the elites (because you actually admire them)...correct, but in good Ole USA, if you vote, you can only vote for them...that is until Trump came along.

"and oppose the ones who were once like you but had the strength to rise from the filth."...not really. I'm not sure what this has to do with my criticism of Professor Buruma's opinion.

"You cannot stop progress...agree for the most part, however, you can influence it...nothing last forever...see USSR...soon to be EU.

"you and the petty minds like yours are the ones who are going to be crushed by reality...again, not sure what is the rationale for this opinion, however, responding to it would further lower my "petty mind" to your level.

You can get arrested (and some have been) for reading Churchill's books in public now. No wonder he is attractive to some elements

The naughty step is getting crowded these days. The frightening thought is of giant busts of some of the newbies, that would be very old school Communist Bloc

Hair is very important now, have you noticed...Even Hollande who had next to no personality and very little hair has spent a great deal of French pubic funds attempting a bouffant to raise public morale, with an emergency hairdresser on call

I have to go down the cafe and order a Red White and Blue Brexit, I understand that is the latest dish on offer. I suspect it is halfway between a croissant and a full English Breakfast or maybe just a variety if Spam

Agreed, on all counts. Churchill, flaws and all, was worth more than - an embarrassing number of successors on both sides of the pond. As for Lone, Lorne Britain, post-Brexit - I have the perfect solution. Britain becomes the 51st state. But wait! It has a unique position as both First, and Fifty-first, state. After all, whose were all those licenses to create colonies? The British State, personified by sundry Queens, Kings & such. With such an arrangement, someone would have come home. Which one, would be indiscreet to inquire.

Excellent articulation by the author. Churchill was a war time chief for G. Britain whereas hundreds of millions in British "colonies" as in India and Burma just hated him, for he was arrogant and plain racist an alcoholic. That say all for the Ma. May his soul rest in peace!

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